


A Dream of Midsummer

by elviaprose



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, PGP, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2061258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elviaprose/pseuds/elviaprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a variety of people want to drug Tarrant for a variety of reasons, and nothing goes as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dream of Midsummer

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely inspired by Midsummer Night's Dream. For the kink meme prompt: _Blake and Avon as Oberon and Titania._
> 
> Many thanks to Aralias, who prompted this fic on the kink meme, helped brainstorm, betaed, encouraged, and supplied turns of phrase where needed. You are the best!
> 
> Thanks also to corngold, for providing encouragement and tips at a critical point. You are also the best!

_I woo'd thee with my sword,_  
 _And won thy love, doing thee injuries;_  
 _But I will wed thee in another key,_  
 _With pomp, with triumph and with revelling._ -A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

 

“No, Blake,” Avon said, loud enough that Vila couldn’t help but hear him, “he will _not._ ”

Huh. Vila wasn’t pleased to be thinking about it, but something was new about that. Vila had a mind better than any safe he’d ever opened––when it came to the way things felt under his fingers. He never forgot how something worked, once he touched it, and he knew one plastic or metal from another without having to think, which was all right by him. Some things he didn’t have much of a head for, though. Numbers, for one. He didn’t like them, and they didn’t like him, so he didn’t bother to keep them in his mind.  Same was true of him and Avon. Some things just didn’t mix.  So he couldn’t really say much about what Blake had said to Avon or what Avon had said to Blake back in the good old days on the Liberator. It wasn’t any of his business, he’d had better things to do, and there was a lot of ship to get lost in if they started yacking at each other. 

But now here he was, tucked away right where Avon and Blake were arguing, and he couldn’t help but think about it.  For all the times he’d heard Avon put Blake down, he didn’t think he’d heard anything quite like that before.

“If we can get Tarrant to Decla, we can contact Avalon. We need support. _I_ need support,” Blake answered, either correcting himself or asking Avon to have his back.  If Blake was clever, it’d be the first.

 “You are even more reckless with Tarrant’s life than he is, Blake.”

“As always, I’m prepared to take full responsibility.”

“But it is _not_ ,” Avon said from between what sounded to be gritted teeth, “ _your_ responsibility to take.” A pause. “It is _mine.”_  

Vila felt the vibrations of Avon’s tread, measured and controlled, as his boots hit the ground.  He was stalking off. At least _that_ was familiar, but the rest was new. Avon hadn’t gone on much about what anyone other than himself had better do back then, had he? And now he was. 

The fact of the matter was - Blake wanted Tarrant to dope himself up on Cycicle 30, so he could make a 60-hour trip without resting. And Avon wouldn’t hear of it.  But Avon had been more and more of an overbearing sod this past year, so it made sense that he’d even argue with Blake about what Blake was going to do with the rest of them now.

Vila supposed some trusting innocent who didn’t know what he knew might think Avon wanted to take care of his friends.

“Ha,” he murmured to himself.  Avon’s footsteps shook the ground less and less until Vila could feel nothing at all.  Well, not nothing. He was alive, wasn’t he? For all the good it was doing him, here on old Silvus.

Vila was a city boy, dome-bred. Silvus 10 was like a continual bad dream. The only really good thing about having Silvus 10 for a base was that it lay between LK56 and Freedom City, and so they’d managed to take a freighter ship for everything it had.  Which included all sorts of nice drugs, and alcohol and boxes and boxes of costumes, which Vila at least was taking full advantage of. Which reminded him, he’d better have another sip. He put the bottle to his lips and tilted it forwards until the pink liquid could slide into his mouth. Sweet peppermint.

Avon, on the other hand, had rooted around until he found something to wear that was actually less of a costume than his usual getup. He hadn’t been drinking much, either. Didn’t know how to take a good opportunity.

Blake had even put Avon in charge of the supplies, drugs included—inventory and distribution--which was a job Vila himself wouldn’t give over to anyone, not even his own mother, or the love of his life. But then, Blake wasn’t Vila, and, who knew what Avon was to Blake, anyway. Perhaps Avon _was_ the love of his life.

Vila smiled a little to himself. He wasn’t sure how serious he was about that, really. It was either totally absurd, or it wasn’t.

Until today, Blake and Avon’d been treating each other like two reasonably acquainted career rebels who didn’t much like each other but had the same things in mind. Well, mostly, anyway. It was almost as though Avon had never shot Blake. No coming to blows, no freezing silences, just the occasional instance where something that shouldn’t have meant much pushed them both nearly to breaking.

So Blake had given Avon the drugs, for whatever reason, and Avon had been free with them. Vila could have anything he wanted from the supply, for a change.  He supposed that was because Avon didn’t need anything much from Vila—if he did, he’d be the first to resort to bribery.

It was nice to have something to take his mind off it all, whatever Avon’s reason for letting him have it. Silvus was no help. Eerie. Creepy. So thick with mossy, rustling, groaning, trees that Tarrant had struggled to find a clearing to put their little pursuit ship down in. So Vila had taken a bottle and curled himself up in one of the crates—nicely padded so the vials of drugs wouldn’t break, when they were in there, eight feet long, clean, and you could forget you were outside, almost.

 Probably he should just be glad to be alive. But he wasn’t. The Federation had patched them all up after capturing them on Gauda Prime—well, all of them on the Federation’s Most Wanted List, which was a dozen of them in all--and then Vila had got them all out.  If he could have escaped without anyone else, he told himself (half believing it), he would have. But he couldn’t, and since he’d been with the others, he’d had to go where Blake told them to go. It certainly wasn’t a place Vila would have chosen. If he wasn’t going to be stealing his way into a fortune, and he wasn’t going to be anywhere anybody really wanted him, couldn’t he at least have some nice straightforward simulated ecstasy on a satellite of sin, perfectly tailored to his every fantasy? Virgins lounging on red carpet so thick you could drown in it, long golden hair down to their waists, silken soft against his hands...

 He gave up on serious thinking and let himself drift into a light dream.

 ***

“You look more disturbed than usual.”

Avon started at the sound of Soolin’s voice. He’d been staring past the small bottles that filled the crate, but at the sight of her he straightened and lowered the lid, then gestured for Soolin to seat herself.

“It occurs to me,” Avon said, “that it was not simply a fortunate chance that the freighter we robbed was stocked with Cycicle 30, as well as Dynatine powder, TDC, Lift, Kitty and Blaze.”

“I imagine Blake was counting on it,” Soolin said. 

Avon dragged his face into a smile. Yes, he imagined so too.  He doubted if anything could really change Blake. Not losing his ship, his followers--nearly losing an eye (how had that happened, he wondered? Not a Federation interrogator, though he knew first hand that that was a favorite threat. That scar obviously wasn’t from a laser probe or any precision torture instrument). And certainly not discovering--as he must have done on Gauda Prime--that Avon loved him to the point of insanity.  As a matter of fact, they shared all of those experiences in common but the last. Avon shuddered to think what he would do if anyone ever humiliated themselves in front of him the way he had with Blake in the tracking gallery.

What if Blake did that?

His mouth was dry before he could tell himself there was no reason to ask such a question. Such an event would require that Avon betray Blake and that Blake love Avon. He couldn’t, he thought bitterly, say which was less likely.

He really ought to say something to Soolin.

“He knew a stimulant like Cycicle 30 would allow a single pilot to make a sixty hour run to Decla. He knew Tarrant, as a Federation trained officer, would have experience with the drug, and he _believed—_ mistakenly—that I would be more likely to accept the plan once we had already half finished with it.”

“What isn’t obvious to me is why it matters so much to you,” Soolin said coolly.

“I will not be made a fool of. I will not have people think I am under the delusion that Blake has not misled me.”

Soolin raised an eyebrow, clearly both unphased and unimpressed by the tangle of a sentence he’d just rapped out.  

“You wanted to raid the freighter, for your own reasons.  Now you’ve found something you don’t like in Blake’s plan, and you’re objecting.  Blake hasn’t misled you into doing anything you didn’t want to do.”

“He has. Frequently.”

“It’s not like you haven’t done the same to us. Perhaps you should reward him for his good behavior this time.” Soolin smirked.

 _I prefer punishment to reward,_ Avon thought, _and he has already had that, from me, in the form of three bullets in the gut._

 ***

Dayna strolled through the forest, enjoying the spring of the earth under her boots and the rustle of the trees over her head. She liked Silvus.

Although they’d spread out helter-skelter, their pillaged crates littering the ground at uneven intervals, she didn’t think Avon would be hard to find. No one ever ventured more than a half mile out. She’d already passed Vila, curled up dozing in a crate near Klyn’s sleeping tarp.  That had been a sight. He’d been wearing a donkey mask pushed up on the top of his head—good to see someone besides her having a little fun with the clothes from Freedom City. She certainly was enjoying them. Even now, the breeze was catching her new blue cloak quite pleasingly.

She reached a place that wasn’t quite a clearing, more a slight thinning of the trees. Light dripped its way onto the ground more generously, here. And there was the man of the hour!

“Avon!” Dayna called, threading her way to where Soolin sat, and Avon stood, glaring at her.

“Tarrant,” Dayna told him, pushing herself up onto the crate to sit beside Soolin, “needs to be taken down a peg.”

“Unlikely. Whenever I feel nostalgia for the Liberator’s auto-repair circuits, I need only marvel at Tarrant’s ability to make an embarrassment of himself. I have no more need to bring Tarrant down than I did to re-calibrate the Liberator’s main drive.”

“He’s been telling tales about me! I don’t know what he’s said, but everyone seems to think Tarrant has a claim on me. I don’t think he lied directly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he said he took me in his manly arms on Ultraworld, and let everyone’s wild imaginations do the rest.”

For that, she placed the blame half with Tarrant and half with Tal Forzen.  He was, as it happened, just Tarrant’s age, and ex-Federation, just like Tarrant. He was the comrade Tarrant had been missing all this time, but nobody else would ever miss. Where Avon had been a surprisingly civilizing influence on Tarrant, Tal Forzen was an unsurprisingly terrible one.

Or perhaps it wasn’t Avon who merited the credit, but the stress on all of them. Tarrant was certainly good to have next to you when your back was to the wall. Now things were all right again he was just reverting to type. All right, so when it came down to it, she was glad things were looking up for them all--but she would be even gladder if she could have a bit of fun at Tarrant’s expense.

“As it happens, I have my eye on someone else,” she added lightly.

Avon said nothing, but his eyebrows lifted. She let him suffer a moment, wondering if she was making a pass at him. Or perhaps he thought she was interested in Blake, which she sensed he wouldn’t like any better.

“Deva!” Dayna said, grinning. “I only need one thing from you.  Give Tarrant a glass of wine laced with aphrodisiacs.”

“Don’t you mean Deva?” Soolin said.

“No,” Dayna said with another wicked grin. “ _Tarrant_.”

“What will you do with him after that?” Avon asked.

“Nothing!” Dayna crowed.  “That’s the beauty of it. He’ll be desperate, and everyone will see that I don’t want him after all. He knows I’m angry at him, so I don’t think he’ll accept a drink from my hand, but he will from you, Avon.”

“He never has before,” Avon said.

“You’ve never offered! Why not do it?” Avon clearly didn’t much like the thought of Tarrant trustingly drinking a poisoned chalice from his hand. He also clearly didn’t like not liking it, and she’d counted on that. “Would it pain your conscience?”

“Well now, is that really likely,” Avon said, and she well and truly had him.

***

Vila woke himself with small cry. For a moment he didn’t know where he was—the close walls of his favorite chest became those of his hiding nook on the shuttle, and Avon was coming for him. 

“Help,” he whispered to himself.

Then he remembered. Must have just dozed off.

He rubbed a hand over his sweating forehead and up, up all the way to his hair. It seemed as though his hand had further to go every time he wiped his brow, which might have worried some, but it made him feel better to think he was getting older. If he’d kept getting older all this time, he might just manage to keep doing it, wouldn’t he?

***

“What are you thinking about?” Deva asked Blake.

“Whether it's true that this planet was terraformed so that the Federation could have a supply of wood. Wood _was_ a luxury once, a mark of status and wealth.  But so much of the Federation’s history has been lost.  There is political reason to destroy or distort almost any piece of history,” Blake said.

“That was almost convincing, you know,” Deva said.

Blake gave him a rueful smile. Yes, he _had_ been thinking about Avon.

Well, not at first. He’d been thinking about Jenna, and how much he missed her. The reality was that they needed Tarrant for the mission because Jenna was dead. That truth hung between him and Avon--unacknowledged, like everything else. Blake found it increasingly difficult to speak to Avon at all past the mass of things they weren’t saying to each other. He had no idea whether Avon even noticed.

There had been no choice but to keep conversation to what was necessary to survive.  They’d needed to figure out where to go, and how to get there, without much time to do it.  He, Tarrant, and Deva had been injured, though recovering, and that had limited their options. 

Blake wondered if the hours he and Avon had spent talking tersely but practically in the midst of their escape had given Avon the idea they could put everything that had happened behind them indefinitely. Perhaps Avon thought _he_ hadn’t noticed—or understood. The truth was that he _didn’t_ entirely understand, but the look on Avon’s face when he thought he’d been betrayed had shocked Blake. He didn’t know precisely what Avon felt for him, but it obviously ran deep. Like a fool, he’d thought that they could find some way, together, to change things between them for the better. 

But once they’d reached Silvus, Avon had taken him by the arm (his willingness to touch Blake as surprising as ever), and drawn him aside for a talk.

“I see no need either to explain or apologize,” Avon had said. “Do you?”

“No,” Blake had said, angry and forceful, not sure if Avon was asking if Blake wanted an apology or if Blake wanted to make one, and in that moment too angry to care. To which Avon had said, 

“Good.  In that case, what are you planning?”

Blake hadn’t been sure how to respond to that. It was just the kind of thing that made him wonder whether he wanted to slap Avon hard across the face or take him in his arms and kiss him fiercely.

He’d since found that Avon believed it was in his interest to fight the Federation and that he considered his best chance of winning to lie with Blake. Their methods and philosophies seemed closer than they ever had before, but that, as much as anything, made Blake despair of ever reconciling with Avon.  Avon’s idea of leadership seemed to be some absurd parody of how he remembered Blake--domineering, manipulative.

Blake took it as a deliberate insult. Perhaps he was afraid that if he didn’t take it as one, he would have to admit that that was simply who Avon was now, and that he didn’t like it.

He would have expected Avon to ask Blake how he could possibly believe that taking responsibility for Tarrant’s life would absolve him of his death. Instead, Avon had claimed the responsibility for himself.

Blake didn’t know what to do with a response like that, and he wondered if Avon did either. 

***

Vila found Avon contemplating a full glass of wine instead of doing anything reasonable with it. Well, that just confirmed that Avon wouldn’t know what to do with a good time if he was staring it in the face. So Vila grabbed the glass and took a generous swallow.

“Vila, you idiot!” Avon snarled.

“Don’t mind me,” Vila said breezily.        

But Avon wasn’t looking at him with annoyance, he was looking at him with that recoiling, dark eyed look he sometimes got. He looked horrified.

Fear gripped Vila.  Before he could even decide what he was afraid of, he was as clammy as he’d been after waking up from his nightmare. 

“Oh no. Oh, no. Avon, what did I drink?  Have you poisoned me? You’ve poisoned me, haven’t you? What was in there? Who were you trying to kill? Blake? I feel faint. I’m going to die, I know it.”

He felt like he was being murdered, even though the glass hadn’t been meant for him. He’d seen on Avon’s face that he hadn’t meant Vila to have it, so why did he feel like Avon was killing him deliberately?

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Avon said, obviously trying to sound bored and irritated, like he would normally have done.  “Go away and bother somebody else.”

“If nothing’s the matter with the drink, have the rest yourself, then.”

“No.”

“It’s going to kill me, isn’t it?  Isn’t there an antidote?”

“Vila. It isn’t poison.”

“As though I’d believe it, coming from you. You wouldn’t be above lying to me until I died of it, would you? Put my mind at ease or…or… or I’ll shoot you!” He fumbled with the gun at his belt and pointed it shakily at Avon. He didn’t think he could shoot Avon, not really, but he could scare him out of wits, and that he really fancied doing. “I’ll give you until the count of three. One.”

Avon hesitated, then smiled his very worst smile.

“I don’t like that smile—can’t you smile the normal way?”

“Give it a minute, and you may change your mind.”

“What does that mean? I mean it, Avon. Two.”

“Very well. I suppose I have deserved this.”

Avon downed the drink. Vila gaped at him. Were they going to die this way? He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe Avon would give in without a fight if it really meant he was going to die, not Avon.

Moisture glistened at the corner of Avon’s mouth, and he wiped it away with a hand that trembled visibly.

 Yes, they really must be going to die, Vila thought. But the panic was ebbing.

He blinked.  Avon looked different, somehow. Everything did, now that he thought of it. The colors seemed brighter.  He blinked again.  What was happening?

“You see?” Avon said, and seemed to do his best to recreate the smile from before. But it turned out a real, good smile, which became a laugh.  A good laugh, which Vila didn’t remember hearing from Avon ever before. Vila found himself laughing, too.

The trees were beautiful. So green. He wanted to run his fingers along the bark, to run his tongue over it. He wanted to touch everything, but one thing most of all, he decided with a last slow, dizzy, greedy sweep of his eyes.

Avon.

And everything was wonderful, so it was no surprise that seemingly for no other reason than that Vila wanted him, Avon slid to the ground, held his arms out and said, “Come and kiss me.”

He kissed the curve of Avon’s ear and whispered the secrets of the universe into it. The wonderful thing about Avon’s skin, he thought, as he pressed them cheek to cheek, was that it smelled milky but tasted salty.

“Take off my left boot,” Avon murmured.

“What? Do it yourself.”

“Too clumsy.  You have such nimble fingers—go on, Vila. Help me.”   When the boot came off, Avon grinned lopsidedly. “You’re the best friend I have,” he said. 

Vila had to hold his breath to keep the happiness in—it was bubbling up too quickly, like a shaken bottle of soma, and it was all too much to let out. So he held his breath until he got dizzy.  Finally, he remembered he could let air out through his nose, but when he tried it didn’t work, and his mouth came open. He lay gasping and laughing while Avon smacked the boot against the ground.

When a small knife tumbled out of the boot, Avon picked it up and cut off the buttons that fastened his own shirt, one by one.  That’s dangerous, Vila thought, but then the shirt gaped open and all he could think about was how much skin he could touch now. He traced Avon’s chest with his tongue again and again and again and wondered if they’d ever get to fucking. 

He must have said that aloud, because Avon tumbled himself away from him, looked up at him through his lashes, and pushed the mask on top of Vila’s head down onto his face so he couldn’t kiss anymore.

***

Dayna was smiling ear to ear.

“Take a good look. Now how do you think _that_ happened?” she asked Blake.

The devil only knew.  Half his chest bared, trousers open, hair a mess, eyes flickering with a dream, a smile on his face. In Vila’s arms.  

People had gathered around the pair, slowly but surely.  Blake made the seventh gawker when he joined them, having gone in search of Klyn and instead found-- _this_.

“Avon wouldn’t have dosed himself deliberately, not on his life,” Tarrant said.

“The question is--”

“Did he enjoy it once it happened?”

“It certainly looks like it.”

“They do look sweet.”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Blake said, his voice as quelling as he knew how to make it. “Let’s leave them in peace.”

He was the first to walk away, but the others followed quickly.

He kept walking, the kind of gait that would have been pacing, if it were backward and forward. But he only went forward. Forward, and forward, and forward. Something undeniably beautiful—and Avon asleep in Vila’s arms was undeniably beautiful--had never made Blake angry before.  For all the time he’d spent thinking about everything that was wrong between him and Avon, he’d never considered that his anger at Avon might be as much about wanting what he couldn’t have as it was about his frustration with Avon’s behavior.  That loving Avon could make Blake less the man he wanted to be.

***

Avon’s aching back intruded on his dream until it woke him.  He lay half-naked on the ground, his ruined shirt gaping open and his trousers undone.  And his arms were wrapped hard around Vila.  In fact, all his muscles were locked so tightly he wasn’t sure he’d be able to move at all. Removing himself from this compromising position, though, was a strong incentive. He made himself move.

They seemed to be alone, which Avon did not take as a sign that their escapade had gone unnoticed.  More likely, they had all come to gape, singly or together, then cleared off out of either tact or cowardice.  Had Blake seen? Damn. He’d think about it later.

He eased himself slowly away, did up his trousers, and staggered to his feet.  He felt groggy and slow, still a touch drugged, his vision hazed.

Vila cracked his eyes open, and pulled the mask off his face. His hair feathered around the band as he removed it, making him look young and tousled.  “Well, I enjoyed myself, at least. A shame it had to be with you.”

That stung, but Avon’s still sluggish mind took a little more time than usual to form a cutting reply.

“I can’t agree,” he heard himself saying instead, as though from a great distance. “I have no natural interest in you as a sexual or romantic partner, but I am glad that I could--please you.”

“Oh, it was very nice,” Vila said, eyes closed, “but that wasn’t you at all, was it? You weren’t in your right mind. Don’t think I don’t know your colors. In your right mind I’m--how many was it? Seventy five kilos of useless cargo to throw away if the going gets rough, and that’s all.”

“Fear is an extremely potent drug--far moreso, I would hazard, than TDC.  And yet I refuse to renounce anything I have tried to do to you--or anyone else--under the influence of either. It’s quite simple, Vila.  Either I am nothing but the sum of my actions, or I am nothing at all.” 

Vila studied him from the ground for a long time, and Avon stared back. 

“No wonder you don’t drink much, then,” Vila said finally, and offered him a grin.

“Yes,” Avon said, gratitude making him awkward, “so you had better not expect a repeat performance.”

***

Tins of fake caviar and sweet wrappers decorated the ground, as did the rebels who’d emptied them.  Some lay on their backs, while others sat, enjoying the sickly aftermath of yet another meal of delicacies, courtesy of their robbed freighter.  Only Avon and Vila were missing, which allowed the gossip to continue unmercifully. .

“And the state of Avon’s clothes!” Klyn was saying. “I never would have imagined he’d do something like that. Clearly they took drugs, but why would he?”

Soon, it seemed everyone was talking at once. Blake closed his eyes.

When everyone went quiet at once, he assumed Avon must have joined them, and braced himself.  Until Jenna’s voice said, from behind him,

“Hello, Blake.”

“Jenna?”  He was on his feet in an instant, and in her arms in another, hugging the breath from her. 

He’d been so sure she was gone. In his pose as a bounty hunter, he’d been in a privileged position.  Access to all the information on wanted rebels, which was both a blessing and a curse. He’d known the moment Jenna’s file had been closed, coded under an AA header--the most certain of death you could be, without a body for a post-mortem. _“Running GP blockade: hit self destruct,”_ the notes had said. Blake had found that rather unambiguous, but now he knew he shouldn’t have been so quick to lose hope.  Now he could feel the warmth of her skin, the uneven rise and fall of her breath.  He really ought to let her go. One of his favorite memories was of Jenna breathing hard after some desperate piloting maneuver, flashing that cool smile of hers at him. He wanted to see that again, but he wasn’t quite ready to let go.

“Well now, Blake,” Avon said acidly, apparently drawn by the shouts. “At last, a suitably touching reunion. No firearms involved. How pleasing that must be. Jenna – I was told you were dead. I’m glad to see Blake was mistaken, though that is hardly a surprise.” 

“Let Blake have his moment,” Dayna said.

“You do turn up like a bad credit piece, Avon,” Tarrant said.

Blake let Jenna loose from his arms and watched her face. Her smile didn’t disappoint.

***

“I know you just arrived,” Blake said, having explained the problem that had caused his most recent fight with Avon—without explaining that it had caused a fight with Avon.

“It’s all right, Blake. I came to help.  That’s a long trip for one pilot.”

“I’d appreciate it, Jenna,” Tarrant said, flashing his best smile.  “I think I’ll enjoy getting to know you.” 

“Careful you don’t make Dayna jealous,” Soolin drawled, her eyes meeting Avon’s in some private joke. 

“Let’s settle this once and for all,” Dayna said, her voice clear and firm. “Tarrant and I are not involved. We are both free to enjoy the pleasure of anyone’s company we choose.  And Tarrant, if you want to spread wild stories, kindly refrain from spreading them about _me_. I believe,” she grinned widely, “thanks to Avon we have enough gossip to keep everyone talking until we leave this place.”

Avon fixed her with a glare.  “So that is how you thank me,” he said dryly, but his lips quirked slightly.

“Do the job properly, if you want to be thanked properly,” Dayna said laughing. “I can’t be faulted.”

Blake wasn’t sure what the joke was, exactly, but it occurred to him that he should put his and Avon’s improved humor to use, try to put their argument to rest while they were both feeling well disposed towards the world.  He was pleased to have Jenna back. And Avon--who sat gazing into the night, his expression neutral, yet somehow lighter--Avon definitely seemed more relaxed than Blake had seen him since their reunion. Best not to think too deeply about why, if he wanted to stay on civil enough terms to use that to his advantage.

***

Avon simply stared at Blake when he gestured for Avon to join him atop the crate. Blake shrugged and reclined back, propped on one arm, one leg drawn up and the other stretched out.  He looked kingly, ridiculous, and very appealing like that. The truth was, even if he’d wanted to join Blake, Avon was far too stiff to manage it.

“Well, Blake? What is this about? Luck is on your side, even if I am not. Our dispute has been settled for us. Jenna will accompany Tarrant, and neither of us needs to swallow his pride and make any troublesome concessions to the other.” 

“No, it isn’t finished. Not when I don’t understand anything you do or say.”

“It resembles what you do and what you say, nearly to the letter.”

“Yes, that’s _why_ I don’t understand.”

“Know thyself.” Avon flashed him a nasty smile.

“Your actions might be the same, but your reasons are different. _Why_ , Avon? ”

“If you could be more specific.”

“Very well. Let’s begin with why you said you held yourself responsible for Tarrant’s life.”

Avon’s teeth clenched. He couldn’t imagine a worse torture than trying to explain himself to Blake. Blake had suggested that Tarrant do something stupid and dangerous, and Avon had wanted his disapproval noted.  He supposed he’d grown increasingly averse to appearing careless with other people’s lives—once a favorite method for making sure no one relied on him--after the incident with Vila in the shuttle.  But he hadn’t wanted Tarrant to think he could depend on Avon to take care of him. He still despised few things more than people relying on him. The solution he’d arrived at had been to express his concern as unpalatably as possible.

 “Perhaps I was…overplaying my hand.”

“Deliberately?”

“Perhaps.”

“So you _wanted_ me to win?”

“ _No_.” Avon snapped. That was precisely not what he had wanted. But how could he explain as much to Blake?

Avon held up a hand. “Blake, I cannot--fully explain myself to you. But I can promise you that if you speak to me honestly, I will listen. I will make every effort to hear you out, whatever you have to say.  That is--” he faltered. “That is the best I can offer you.”  It might not seem like much, he thought, but what Vila had done for him had been a true kindness. One he wanted to offer Blake, if he could. 

“Generous of you.”

A bit of hurt must have shown on Avon’s face, in spite of himself, because Blake sighed. “No, that was ungenerous of _me_. All right, Avon. I can see you’re trying.”

That was the point at which Blake should have explained himself. Made accusations. But Blake was silent. Avon wondered what more he could say, since his offer had apparently not been enough. _Nothing_ , he decided, as the silence between them started to seem like it was going to last. _He has to be the one to speak._

“About what happened on Gauda Prime--” Blake began at last, only to grind to a halt.

“Yes, Blake. I will listen to anything.” He kept his voice flat.  He’d offered to listen as a favor to Blake--to seem like he wanted to know for himself would be inappropriate, as well as humiliating.  He could feel himself begin to sweat, under his arms and across his palms as he waited for Blake to go on. 

“I don’t imagine you want to hear this,” Blake said, “but you did ask. I want you to be sorry for what you did to me while I was _unarmed,_ while I was telling you that I _needed you._ I have no _right_. I know that. It doesn’t stop me from feeling the way I do. I also don’t want you to have anyone but me.  I don’t have any right to ask that, either.”

Avon blinked. He hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t ever considered the possibility.  Or had he? He half believed he’d always known. He thought of Vila, who had once said, “I knew it would work.” Somebody...Cally? had said, “no you didn’t,” and Vila had agreed, good naturedly enough. Foolish, but he understood it. Sometimes it was difficult to remember who you had been a moment before.

Blake loved him. 

 “Well, Blake,” he rasped, swallowing, then drawing a slow breath. “For once you are completely correct. You have no right to any of that. But as it happens, I _am_ sorry for what I did to you, although I believe that is irrational.   I also don’t want anyone but you, although I believe that is...even more irrational.”

They looked at each other for a long time. Eventually, Blake pushed himself down from the crate, and Avon stepped towards him. They kept moving closer until they met in what was certainly the clumsiest embrace of Avon’s life. He was awkward, his limbs moving to all the wrong places while Blake’s did the same. 

Finally, he managed to pull Blake’s head towards him into a kiss, and he bit at Blake’s lip and gasped into his mouth, helpless from practically nothing.  His chest ached.  He knew all too well what blissful, totally uninhibited sex felt like. This was about as far from it as it could get, and he thought he could never have enough of it, or of Blake.

“Will things be different?” Blake asked, drawing away.

“You never change, Blake,” Avon said quietly, “but I believe they will.” 


End file.
